Aug. 27, 2001
Day 10: Diamonds All Around, Going Out With A Bang

ANTWERP, Belgium -

Friday, August 24 we were able to sleep in! After a quick breakfast, we departed for our day in Antwerp, Belgium (the diamond capitol).

We did not have too much time there, mostly we ate lunch and did a little shopping. A big seller for the team, Belgium chocolate! Yummy!

An interesting note, they use Belgium Franks in Antwerp. The exchange rate for American dollars to Franks was on dollar to 40 Franks. Thank God we did not have so much time in this city. We all probably would have left with headaches from dividing by 40 and doing math all afternoon.

Also interesting, almost every restaurant seemed to be Italian. It was kind of amusing, Eating Italian food, served by French speaking waiters, in Belgium. Obviously these countries are not as separate and individual as we see them to be.

We left Antwerp and headed over to play our last game of the trip against:

Talk about going out with a bang, we won 5-0.

A long bus ride followed the game and we arrived back at the Monastery at 1:30 a.m. This was a good thing be it was our introduction to shifting our body clocks back to Eastern Standard Time.

We packed our bags, caught about a two-hour nap on Saturday, August 25 and left the Monastery at 5:00 a.m.

Our European preseason completed with a sleep filled plane ride to Newark and a transfer to BWI.

I think we all really appreciate our coaching staff for planning the trip and helping it become reality. European preseason brought our team together and helped make us more worldly and well rounded individuals in ways that we could not have done our own.

A large thanks to [Shannon, Kerry D., and Steve] for making it all possible. Also thanks to Phyllis for keeping us healthy, Hendrick for being our tour guide, and Mr. Tottman for the planning.

Game Report

Maryland played its most complete game against Oost Kapelle of Holland, recording a 5-0 win. Coach Shannon Higgins-Cirovski was pleased with the Terps' usage of several different set pieces including goals on a corner kick and a throw-in. Overall, the win was a big confidence builder as Maryland headed back to the U.S. The Terps goals came from Audra Poulin, assisted by Courtney Beirne (Westminster, Md.), Sara Gustafson (Reisterstown, Md.), assisted by Kim King (Media, Pa.) and Lindsay Givens (Downingtown, Pa.), Melissa Anderson (Annapolis, Md.), Valerie Lawrence (Silver Spring, Md.), a header off a Givens' corner kick and Beirne off an assist from Lindsay Niehaus (Cincinnati, Ohio). Ali Wolff (Richmond, Va.) played her fifth straight complete game and posted the shutout.